Download or read book How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today written by Simon Goldhill and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the stages of Broadway and London to university campuses, Paris, and the bourgeoning theaters of Africa, Greek tragedy remains constantly in production. This global revival, in addition to delighting audiences, has highlighted both the promise and the pitfalls of staging ancient masterpieces in the modern age. Addressing the issues and challenges these performances pose, renowned classicist Simon Goldhill responds here to the growing demand for a comprehensive guide to staging Greek tragedy today. In crisp and spirited prose, Goldhill explains how Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles conceived their works in performance and then summarizes everything we know about how their tragedies were actually staged. The heart of his book tackles the six major problems facing any company performing these works today: the staging space and concept of the play; the use of the chorus; the actor’s role in an unfamiliar style of performance; the place of politics in tragedy; the question of translation; and the treatment of gods, monsters, and other strange characters of the ancient world. Outlining exactly what makes each of these issues such a pressing difficulty for modern companies, Goldhill provides insightful solutions drawn from his nimble analyses of some of the best recent productions in the United States, Britain, and Continental Europe. One of the few experts on both Greek tragedy and contemporary performance, Goldhill uses his unique background and prodigious literary skill to illuminate brilliantly what makes tragedy at once so exciting and so tricky to get right. The result will inspire and enlighten all directors and performers—not to mention the growing audiences—of ancient Greek theater.
Download or read book Greek Tragedy in Action written by Oliver Taplin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-10-04 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oliver Taplin's seminal study was revolutionary in drawing out the significance of stage action in Greek tragedy at a time when plays were often read purely as texts, rather than understood as performances. Professor Taplin explores nine plays, including Aeschylus' agamemnon and Sophocles' Oedipus the King. The details of theatrical techniques and stage directions, used by playwrights to highlight key moments, are drawn out and related to the meaning of each play as a whole. With extensive translated quotations, the essential unity of action and speech in Greek tragedy is demonstrated. Now firmly established as a classic text, Greek Tragedy in Action is even more relevant today, when performances of Greek tragedies and plays inspired by them have had such an extraordinary revival around the world.
Download or read book Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage written by Helene P. Foley and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2014-06-26 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the emergence of Greek tragedy on the American stage from the nineteenth century to the present. Despite the gap separating the world of classical Greece from our own, Greek tragedy has provided a fertile source for some of the most innovative American theater. Helene P. Foley shows how plays like Oedipus Rex and Medea have resonated deeply with contemporary concerns and controversies—over war, slavery, race, the status of women, religion, identity, and immigration. Although Greek tragedy was often initially embraced for its melodramatic possibilities, by the twentieth century it became a vehicle not only for major developments in the history of American theater and dance but also for exploring critical tensions in American cultural and political life. Drawing on a wide range of sources—archival, video, interviews, and reviews—Reimagining Greek Tragedy on the American Stage provides the most comprehensive treatment of the subject available.
Download or read book Reading Greek Tragedy written by Simon Goldhill and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-02 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an advanced critical introduction to Greek tragedy. It is written specifically for the reader who does not know Greek and who may be unfamiliar with the context of the Athenian drama festival but who nevertheless wants to appreciate the plays in all their complexity. Simon Goldhill aims to combine the best contemporary scholarly criticism in classics with a wide knowledge of modern literary studies in other fields. He discusses the masterpieces of Athenian drama in the light of contemporary critical controversies in such a way as to enable the student or scholar not only to understand and appreciate the texts of the most commonly read plays, but also to evaluate and utilize the range of approaches to the problems of ancient drama. This revised edition contains a substantial new Introduction which engages with critical and scholarly developments in Greek tragedy since the original publication.
Download or read book The Theater of War written by Bryan Doerries and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For years theater director Bryan Doerries has been producing ancient Greek tragedies for a wide range of at-risk people in society. His is the personal and deeply passionate story of a life devoted to reclaiming the timeless power of an ancient artistic tradition to comfort the afflicted. Doerries leads an innovative public health project—Theater of War—that produces ancient dramas for current and returned soldiers, people in recovery from alcohol and substance abuse, tornado and hurricane survivors, and more. Tracing a path that links the personal to the artistic to the social and back again, Doerries shows us how suffering and healing are part of a timeless process in which dialogue and empathy are inextricably linked. The originality and generosity of Doerries’s work is startling, and The Theater of War—wholly unsentimental, but intensely felt and emotionally engaging—is a humane, knowledgeable, and accessible book that will both inspire and enlighten.
Download or read book Hypertheatre written by Olga Kekis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-19 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hypertheatre: Contemporary Radical Adaptation of Greek Tragedy investigates the adaptation of classical drama for the contemporary stage and explores its role as an active, polemical form of theatre which addresses present-day issues. The book’s premise is that by breaking drama into constituent parts, revising, reinterpreting and rewriting to create a new, culturally and politically relevant construct, the process of adaptation creates a 'hyperplay', newly repurposed for the contemporary world. This process is explored through a diverse collection of postmodern adaptations of Antigone, Medea, and The Trojan Women, analysing their adaptive strategies and the evidence of how these remakings reflect the cultures of which they are a part. Central to this study is the idea that each of these adaptations becomes an entirely new play, redefining its central female figures and invoking reconfigurations of femininity which emphasise individual women’s strengths and female solidarity. Written for scholars of Theatre, Adaptation, Performance Studies, and Literature, Hypertheatre places the Greek classics firmly within a contemporary feminist discourse.
Download or read book Objects as Actors written by Melissa Mueller and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-01-13 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Objects as Actors charts a new approach to Greek tragedy based on an obvious, yet often overlooked, fact: Greek tragedy was meant to be performed. As plays, the works were incomplete without physical items—theatrical props. In this book, Melissa Mueller ingeniously demonstrates the importance of objects in the staging and reception of Athenian tragedy. As Mueller shows, props such as weapons, textiles, and even letters were often fully integrated into a play’s action. They could provoke surprising plot turns, elicit bold viewer reactions, and provide some of tragedy’s most thrilling moments. Whether the sword of Sophocles’s Ajax, the tapestry in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, or the tablet of Euripides’s Hippolytus, props demanded attention as a means of uniting—or disrupting—time, space, and genre. Insightful and original, Objects as Actors offers a fresh perspective on the central tragic texts—and encourages us to rethink ancient theater as a whole.
Download or read book Tragedy the Greeks and Us written by Simon Critchley and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the moderator of The New York Times philosophy blog "The Stone," a book that argues that if we want to understand ourselves we have to go back to theater, to the stage of our lives Tragedy presents a world of conflict and troubling emotion, a world where private and public lives collide and collapse. A world where morality is ambiguous and the powerful humiliate and destroy the powerless. A world where justice always seems to be on both sides of a conflict and sugarcoated words serve as cover for clandestine operations of violence. A world rather like our own. The ancient Greeks hold a mirror up to us, in which we see all the desolation and delusion of our lives but also the terrifying beauty and intensity of existence. This is not a time for consolation prizes and the fatuous banalities of the self-help industry and pop philosophy. Tragedy allows us to glimpse, in its harsh and unforgiving glare, the burning core of our aliveness. If we give ourselves the chance to look at tragedy, we might see further and more clearly.
Download or read book Greek Tragedy written by and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1977 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage written by Melinda Powers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-07-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its long history of performance and reception, Greek drama has been interpreted and adapted in countless ways and forms in response to and as a reflection of the preoccupations and tensions of particular historical moments. This volume continues this tradition by investigating a cross-section of theatrical productions on the contemporary American stage that have reimagined Greek tragedy in order to address the political and social concerns of minority communities. Studying performance and its role in creating and reflecting social, cultural, and historical identity in contemporary America, it draws on cutting-edge research in the field to move discussion away from the interpretation of dramatic texts in isolation from their performance context, and towards an analysis of the dynamic experience of live theatre. The discussion focuses particularly on the ability of engaged performances to pose critical challenges to the long-standing stereotypes that have contributed to the misrepresentation and marginalization of minority cultures. However, in the process it also uncovers the ways in which such performances can inadvertently reinforce the very stereotypes they aim to execute, demonstrating that ancient drama can be a powerful and dangerous tool in the search for social justice.
Download or read book How Greek Tragedy Works written by Brian Kulick and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Greek Tragedy Works is a journey through the hidden meanings and dual nature of Greek tragedy, drawing on its foremost dramatists to bring about a deeper understanding of how and why to engage with these enduring plays. Brian Kulick dispels the trepidation that many readers feel with regard to classical texts by equipping them with ways in which they can unpack the hidden meanings of these plays. He focuses on three of the key texts of Greek theatre: Aeschylus' Agamemnon, Euripides' The Bacchae, and Sophocles' Electra, and uses them to tease out the core principles of the theatre-making and storytelling impulses. By encouraging us to read between the lines like this, he also enables us to read these and other Greek tragedies as artists' manifestos, equipping us not only to understand tragedy itself, but also to interpret what the great playwrights had to say about the nature of plays and drama. This is an indispensable guide for anyone who finds themselves confronted with tackling the Greek classics, whether as a reader, scholar, student, or director.
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy written by P. E. Easterling and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-10-02 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a creative medium, ancient Greek tragedy has had an extraordinarily wide influence: many of the surviving plays are still part of the theatrical repertoire, and texts like Agamemnon, Antigone, and Medea have had a profound effect on Western culture. This Companion is not a conventional introductory textbook but an attempt, by seven distinguished scholars, to present the familiar corpus in the context of modern reading, criticism, and performance of Greek tragedy. There are three main emphases: on tragedy as an institution in the civic life of ancient Athens, on a range of different critical interpretations arising from fresh readings of the texts, and on changing patterns of reception, adaptation, and performance from antiquity to the present. Each chapter can be read independently, but each is linked with the others, and most examples are drawn from the same selection of plays.
Download or read book Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy written by George Rodosthenous and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy: Auteurship and Directorial Visions provides a wide-ranging analysis of the role of the director in shaping adaptations for the stage today. Through its focus on a wide range of international productions by Katie Mitchell, Theodoros Terzopoulos, Peter Sellars, Jan Fabre, Ariane Mnouchkine, Tadashi Suzuki, Yukio Ninagawa, Andrei Serban, Nikos Charalambous, Bryan Doerries and Richard Schechner, among others, it offers readers a detailed study of the ways directors have responded to the original texts, refashioning them for different audiences, contexts and purposes. As such the volume will appeal to readers of theatre and performance studies, classics and adaptation studies, directors and theatre practitioners, and anyone who has ever wondered 'why they did it like that' when watching a stage production of an ancient Greek play. The volume Contemporary Adaptations of Greek Tragedy is divided in three sections: the first section - Global Perspectives - considers the work of a range of major directors from around the world who have provided new readings of Greek Tragedy: Peter Sellars and Athol Fugard in the US, Katie Mitchell in the UK, Theodoros Terzopoulos in Greece and Tadashi Suzuki and Yukio Ninagawa in Japan. Their work on a wide range of plays is analysed, including Electra, Oedipus the King, The Persians, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Ajax. Parts Two and Three – Directing as Dialogue with the Community and Directorial Re-Visions - focus on a range of productions of key plays from the repertoire, including Prometheus Landscape II, Les Atrides, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae, Antigone and The Suppliants, among others. In each, the varying approaches of different directors are analysed, together with a detailed investigation of the mise-en-scene. In considering each stage production, the authors raise issues of authenticity, contemporary resonances, translation, directorial control/auteurship and adaptation.
Download or read book Interpreting Greek Tragedy written by Charles Segal and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This generous selection of published essays by the distinguished classicist Charles Segal represents over twenty years of critical inquiry into the questions of what Greek tragedy is and what it means for modern-day readers. Taken together, the essays reflect profound changes in the study of Greek tragedy in the United States during this period-in particular, the increasing emphasis on myth, psychoanalytic interpretation, structuralism, and semiotics.
Download or read book Adapting Greek Tragedy written by Vayos Liapis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-04 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows how contemporary adaptations, on the stage and on the page, can breathe new life into Greek tragedy.
Download or read book The Greek Plays written by Sophocles and published by Modern Library. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 866 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A landmark anthology of the masterpieces of Greek drama, featuring all-new, highly accessible translations of some of the world’s most beloved plays, including Agamemnon, Prometheus Bound, Bacchae, Electra, Medea, Antigone, and Oedipus the King Featuring translations by Emily Wilson, Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Mary Lefkowitz, and James Romm The great plays of Ancient Greece are among the most enduring and important legacies of the Western world. Not only is the influence of Greek drama palpable in everything from Shakespeare to modern television, the insights contained in Greek tragedy have shaped our perceptions of the nature of human life. Poets, philosophers, and politicians have long borrowed and adapted the ideas and language of Greek drama to help them make sense of their own times. This exciting curated anthology features a cross section of the most popular—and most widely taught—plays in the Greek canon. Fresh translations into contemporary English breathe new life into the texts while capturing, as faithfully as possible, their original meaning. This outstanding collection also offers short biographies of the playwrights, enlightening and clarifying introductions to the plays, and helpful annotations at the bottom of each page. Appendices by prominent classicists on such topics as “Greek Drama and Politics,” “The Theater of Dionysus,” and “Plato and Aristotle on Tragedy” give the reader a rich contextual background. A detailed time line of the dramas, as well as a list of adaptations of Greek drama to literature, stage, and film from the time of Seneca to the present, helps chart the history of Greek tragedy and illustrate its influence on our culture from the Roman Empire to the present day. With a veritable who’s who of today’s most renowned and distinguished classical translators, The Greek Plays is certain to be the definitive text for years to come. Praise for The Greek Plays “Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm deftly have gathered strong new translations from Frank Nisetich, Sarah Ruden, Rachel Kitzinger, Emily Wilson, as well as from Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm themselves. There is a freshness and pungency in these new translations that should last a long time. I admire also the introductions to the plays and the biographies and annotations provided. Closing essays by five distinguished classicists—the brilliant Daniel Mendelsohn and the equally skilled David Rosenbloom, Joshua Billings, Mary-Kay Gamel, and Gregory Hays—all enlightened me. This seems to me a helpful light into our gathering darkness.”—Harold Bloom
Download or read book Greek Tragedies as Plays for Performance written by David Raeburn and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a unique introduction to Greek tragedy that explores the plays as dramatic artifacts intended for performance and pays special attention to construction, design, staging, and musical composition. Written by a scholar who combines his academic understanding of Greek tragedy with his singular theatrical experience of producing these ancient dramas for the modern stage Discusses the masters of the genre—Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—including similarities, differences, the hybrid nature of Greek tragedy, the significance that each poet attaches to familiar myths and his distinctive approach as a dramatic artist Examines 10 plays in detail, focusing on performances by the chorus and the 3 actors, the need to captivate audiences attending a major civic and religious festival, and the importance of the lyric sections for emotional effect Provides extended dramatic analysis of important Greek tragedies at an appropriate level for introductory students Contains a companion website, available upon publication at www.wiley.com/go/raeburn, with 136 audio recordings of Greek tragedy that illustrate the beauty of the Greek language and the powerful rhythms of the songs
